Interesting news from the Q1 conference call today.

I listened in on the Q1 financial report today given by Apple, and there were some real “boring” questions.  Not boring as in financial questions are boring, but boring as in insanely obvious questions that were being asked.  You’ll never guess what the first question was… “How’s Steve?”  I mean really?  You haven’t heard that question asked a bazillion times in the last two months? You haven’t heard the same response over and over?  Anyway.

One pretty exciting snippet of news to come out of the announcement was that Apple expects to open 25 more stores over the course of the year.  Tim Cook was quick to place an emphasis on the fact that the Apple stores are predominantly going to open overseas, and that a great deal of work has been placed into ensuring that the real estate locations were optimal to their sales models.

Another really interesting question was posed by Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray about subsidized markets and the sales numbers in those areas.  Tim Cook noted that they sold substantially less iPhones in those markets, but that they are looking to reevaluate their approach in countries such as India and try to gain more substantial market share there.  He was also quick to give the marketing pitch that Apple’s primary objective is to build the worlds best phone, and not be the worlds most “sold” phone.  They aren’t in the business of creating a cheap phone and music player to become the most sold phone on the market.

Those are just a couple of topics that seemed to really grab my attention outside of the numbers and revenue levels that have come to pass in the first Quarter, but i’ll save you all that math.

  • http://www.joeranft.com Joe Ranft

    Let me preface this comment by saying I own a significant amount of Apple stock, and iPhone, two iPods, and two Macs, so I'm not a hater.

    But I do feel like a lot of the Apple community is in denial about what Steve Jobs' departure means to the company. He is a very unique leader – at once a designer, innovator, product manager, and business savant. He will not be replaced. Maybe you'll find somebody who is good at two of those roles, but not all four.

    The result could be that Apple, over 5 years or so, loses its focus, starts releasing too many products, like all other tech companies, cuts corners on quality, lowers prices, and degenerates into Dell.

  • http://www.joeranft.com Joe Ranft

    Let me preface this comment by saying I own a significant amount of Apple stock, and iPhone, two iPods, and two Macs, so I'm not a hater.

    But I do feel like a lot of the Apple community is in denial about what Steve Jobs' departure means to the company. He is a very unique leader – at once a designer, innovator, product manager, and business savant. He will not be replaced. Maybe you'll find somebody who is good at two of those roles, but not all four.

    The result could be that Apple, over 5 years or so, loses its focus, starts releasing too many products, like all other tech companies, cuts corners on quality, lowers prices, and degenerates into Dell.